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The Road to Hel: A Study of the Conception of the Dead in Old Norse Literature
Originally published in 1943, this book was written using a variety of evidence from archaeology and literature concerning Norse funeral customs to reconstruct their conception of future life, the soul of man, the cult of the dead, and the journey to the land of the dead. The text is notable as one of the first comprehensive treatments of these areas, showing how knowledge could be forwarded by correlation of the evidence from various academic fields. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Norse history, archaeology and literature.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1943
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About the author
H.R. Ellis Davidson
37 books63 followersHilda Roderick Ellis Davidson was an English antiquarian and academic, writing in particular on Germanic paganism and Celtic paganism.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
December 12, 2008
Using sagas, so called "myth", archaeological finds and first hand historical sources Davidson constructs Norse Pagan belief and customs pertaining to death, funeral customs, the afterlife, the spirit world, conception of the soul, necromancy and more.
Once again I'm blown away by Davidsons work. This actually is most likely her best book and thats saying a lot coming from me. Ellis-Davidson was strictly an academic and was not a Heathen as far as I know but if your an Odinist this and Davidsons Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe should be at the top of your reading list ahead of any of the contemporary "Asatru" writers who are most often heavily influenced by new age, wiccan and judeo-christian ideas. I don't understand why this great book is out of print when inferior books on northern European Heathenry are being published left and right.
Once again I'm blown away by Davidsons work. This actually is most likely her best book and thats saying a lot coming from me. Ellis-Davidson was strictly an academic and was not a Heathen as far as I know but if your an Odinist this and Davidsons Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe should be at the top of your reading list ahead of any of the contemporary "Asatru" writers who are most often heavily influenced by new age, wiccan and judeo-christian ideas. I don't understand why this great book is out of print when inferior books on northern European Heathenry are being published left and right.
July 6, 2020
Extremely well-researched study! It offers lots of keys for understanding the Norse idea of Death. As in many other traditions there are two paths in the afterlife: Transcendence and Rebirth.
January 21, 2018
As the author of the only other book titled The Road to Hel (on Amazon, at least) I felt compelled to review this one. I was already familiar with the author from her Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe, which outlines many parallels between old Norse and old Celtic religion. Although she was not a Heathen, her love of the Norse lore is evident, and she was as sympathetic to Norse religion as someone whose focus is primarily academic can be. She understood, for example, that for anyone who was devoted to a particular god, he was not a 'fertility deity' or a 'war deity', but simply the lord and friend who they asked for help in all areas of life.
That said, I was disappointed with this book in some ways. The impression I took away is that there were only three things, in the pre-Christian North, to look forward to after death: 1) becoming a draugar, an (usually) evil animated corpse; 2) lying in the ground forever getting rained and snowed on; or, if you happened to be a seeress when you were alive, 3) lying in the ground getting rained and snowed on until somebody calls you up to pick your brain. The picture is, in other words, a bit on the bleak side. There are just a couple of mentions of people expecting to be with the gods and goddesses after death--notably Egil's daughter saying that she will "sup with Freya". Even Valholl gets short shrift, as the author relates Odin's realm back to stories of an everlasting battle of dead warriors going on beneath the earth--more animated corpses, basically.
Part of this is no doubt due to the scarcity of non-Christianized Norse texts, and part might be because this was the author's first book. Later on I think she might have cast her net a bit more widely, and spent more time with Celtic and other European sources to help interpret the scanty source material. For instance, I think of the many Irish stories where people who recently died were seen among the fairies (which makes me remember reading about a Norse warrior whose relatives see Freyr welcoming him to a feast set inside his grave mound--not sure where I got this, and it isn't mentioned in The Road to Hel).
Other parts of the book are more fun--specifically the accounts of 'sending forth the fetch' and the section on valkryies, hamingja and disir. The fetch-sending part is pretty much a universal belief that is probably the source of the stories about werewolves, were-hares, and were-whatevers that you can find in all cultures all over the world. (It does make me wonder, if the spirit can leave the body during life, doesn't it seem logical it would go some place else after death rather than hanging in the grave mound?)
As for the disir et al, I think the author's academic bias shows in her conclusion that all these "supernatural women" are likely the same. For an analogy, consider what future scholars might might conclude from the few fragmentary writings left by our own culture, in a future where dogs and cats have become extinct. I can see them looking at the evidence--here were two mythical creatures, both furred, both valued for companionship and for hunting vermin--and conclude that there was really only one supernatural animal being described, worshipped by a unified cult until things became confused as the culture disintegrated.
Despite these shortcomings, The Road to Hel is a valuable book to have as a guide, so one can follow her references and do one's own research about the vision of the dead and their world(s) in the Norse lays and sagas. Also, here and there the author has some interesting insights--such as comparing the trance of a living seeress to the death from which the volva of the Voluspa is grumpily awakened--that prefigure her later, and in my opinion better, work.
That said, I was disappointed with this book in some ways. The impression I took away is that there were only three things, in the pre-Christian North, to look forward to after death: 1) becoming a draugar, an (usually) evil animated corpse; 2) lying in the ground forever getting rained and snowed on; or, if you happened to be a seeress when you were alive, 3) lying in the ground getting rained and snowed on until somebody calls you up to pick your brain. The picture is, in other words, a bit on the bleak side. There are just a couple of mentions of people expecting to be with the gods and goddesses after death--notably Egil's daughter saying that she will "sup with Freya". Even Valholl gets short shrift, as the author relates Odin's realm back to stories of an everlasting battle of dead warriors going on beneath the earth--more animated corpses, basically.
Part of this is no doubt due to the scarcity of non-Christianized Norse texts, and part might be because this was the author's first book. Later on I think she might have cast her net a bit more widely, and spent more time with Celtic and other European sources to help interpret the scanty source material. For instance, I think of the many Irish stories where people who recently died were seen among the fairies (which makes me remember reading about a Norse warrior whose relatives see Freyr welcoming him to a feast set inside his grave mound--not sure where I got this, and it isn't mentioned in The Road to Hel).
Other parts of the book are more fun--specifically the accounts of 'sending forth the fetch' and the section on valkryies, hamingja and disir. The fetch-sending part is pretty much a universal belief that is probably the source of the stories about werewolves, were-hares, and were-whatevers that you can find in all cultures all over the world. (It does make me wonder, if the spirit can leave the body during life, doesn't it seem logical it would go some place else after death rather than hanging in the grave mound?)
As for the disir et al, I think the author's academic bias shows in her conclusion that all these "supernatural women" are likely the same. For an analogy, consider what future scholars might might conclude from the few fragmentary writings left by our own culture, in a future where dogs and cats have become extinct. I can see them looking at the evidence--here were two mythical creatures, both furred, both valued for companionship and for hunting vermin--and conclude that there was really only one supernatural animal being described, worshipped by a unified cult until things became confused as the culture disintegrated.
Despite these shortcomings, The Road to Hel is a valuable book to have as a guide, so one can follow her references and do one's own research about the vision of the dead and their world(s) in the Norse lays and sagas. Also, here and there the author has some interesting insights--such as comparing the trance of a living seeress to the death from which the volva of the Voluspa is grumpily awakened--that prefigure her later, and in my opinion better, work.
October 2, 2012
hi i like to learn about dead things and how we let them walk around like things and bury them under the fridge magnets the norse called rocks. it's pretty cool. i read about how they told the slave girls they would be married to their kings and jarls in heaven and that made me larf larf and the girls they cut the throats of the chickens and shook them for a chicken dance. did you know that the dead get jealous and eat their horses by the head. we travel by shrugging across to hel in a little growlboat. oh this hilda was a bellkeeper she watched the bells and wrote about the norses and their horses and had such a dry way of writing down what is dying to be weirded out. academic writing real real "academic writing" will always be the most uncomfortable (un)interaction i see.
June 28, 2015
Very, very interesting. Succinctly organized with provided commentary and analysis on "Hel", the mythological figure. I enjoyed how it offered perspectives on the underworld that I had never thought of before.
May 13, 2011
The Road to Hel is a must-read for the serious scholar of heathen thought.
It's clear from the archeological evidence that there was no one funeral custom practiced by all heathen peoples in all time periods. Further, the favored type of funeral custom, particularly burial vs. cremation, seemed to have followed a fashion, with cremation being more popular during the period of the Roman Empire than either before or after. Ship-burials and solar symbols were often found together, but the ships buried in the ground with apparent grave goods often had no human remains in them, and had instead a basin buried on top of it in which to receive libations; these were clearly sacrifices, not inhumations. The line between burial customs and sacrifices was a fuzzy one, pointing toward a cult of the dead.
The ancient heathens practiced ship burials, ship burial style sacrifices without human remains in them, ship cremations on the water, burials in the howe, and open air funeral pyres on land. Suttee was not unknown, although it was often not the actual wife who accompanied a king or earl to his next life; often it was a slave. Sacrifices of animals and multiple slaves also occurred. There was also a tradition about what would happen to someone who went into a burial or cremation alive. Those cremated alive, as in suttee, went on to the next world, but those who went into the mound alive became dangerous undead who had to be fought and slain.
The mound and the mound dead were connected to the Vanir and Freyr, and cremation with Odhinn. The mound dead could be fearsome undead or they could be helpful and give gifts such as a gift of poetry. Sacrifices were made to mound dwellers and to the mound itself as a gateway to the land of the dead. The dead were sometimes said to live in mountains or other high places in the earth rather than in man-made mounds. Kings and shepherds sat on mounds and communicated with the dead. Sitting on howes was facilitated by a stone bench seat on top or at its base. The howe dweller could be an inhumation burial or could have been cremated and then placed in the mound. Cremains could be kept separate from any burned offerings made with it, or commingled.
The line between mound-dead and elf was a blurry one, but so was the line between elf and god. The burial mound and the elf hill might be one, but so might the realm of the dead and the bright halls of the gods. Sacrifices of milk poured into naturally occurring "elf cups" could be made to the earth or to the dead.
Cremation is connected with sending the soul to the afterworld in the land of the dead, and the howe burial to remaining in the earth to be reborn in human form, a process that can be assured by naming a child after the dead one. Undead draugr last until the soul is reborn in a new body, which is caused by the naming of a child after the dead person; alternately, the undread draugr lasts until grave robbers slay it, at which point the dead one's soul is released for rebirth in the body of a child named after him or her.
Reading in this book about tales of necromancy that show the dead were believed to have knowledge of the past and future they did not have in life, it occured to me that this showed the dead were not bound to time.
There are many accounts of journeys to the land of the dead that seem to describe a burial mound, full of darkness, bad odors, unmoving corpses, and treasure-- but the corpses come alive and attack when the 'hero' tries to rob the treasure. Also the land of the dead is seen as reached not only through a wall of fire but also a dragon's mouth leading down into darkness, and fire was the sign of a mound inhabited by undead. The land of the dead is reached by a journey down into the earth through darkness across a bridge over a river. There is a high wall, over which the guide throws a slain rooster which crows from the other side. The emphasis is not on where the dead go, but how they get there: the magical horse, the funeral boat. The journey, not the destination.
In those stories that show the mound-dead, when there is a guardian that must be passed to get in, the guardian is a giant, not a god. The realm where the dead live in an afterlife with the gods belongs to the other tradition.
It's tempting to draw a straight line down these traditions and say, rather than believing in a multipartite soul as most heathen scholars say the ancient heathens did, they simply had two competing traditions, Aesiric and Vanic. The Aesiric tradition of pyres and suttee arrived with the Indo-Europeans, and the Vanic tradition began with those most ancient Europeans who buried their dead and sprinkled red powders over them at burial to give them the appearance of life. The Aesiric tradition had an afterlife with the gods reached by cremation, and the Vanic tradition had a belief in a brief afterlife in the mound followed by rebirth in human form. But the author resists this temptation toward oversimplification, showing that the description of Valhalla pulls from both traditions: both the tradition of an afterlife for the soul in another world with a god (Odhinn) and the tradition of the mound-dead who constantly engage in battle in the darkness and keep having their bodies re-animated in undead fashion.
The ancient heathens had a smorgasbord of funerary customs and beliefs which coexisted, among all folks and all times, and the lines between different beliefs and different other-than-human entities were not drawn as strongly and neatly as modern categorizers like. The heathen view of death was not one perspective, but many, side by side.
I highly recommend this book. It's a keeper.
Review by Erin Lale, author of Asatru For Beginners
It's clear from the archeological evidence that there was no one funeral custom practiced by all heathen peoples in all time periods. Further, the favored type of funeral custom, particularly burial vs. cremation, seemed to have followed a fashion, with cremation being more popular during the period of the Roman Empire than either before or after. Ship-burials and solar symbols were often found together, but the ships buried in the ground with apparent grave goods often had no human remains in them, and had instead a basin buried on top of it in which to receive libations; these were clearly sacrifices, not inhumations. The line between burial customs and sacrifices was a fuzzy one, pointing toward a cult of the dead.
The ancient heathens practiced ship burials, ship burial style sacrifices without human remains in them, ship cremations on the water, burials in the howe, and open air funeral pyres on land. Suttee was not unknown, although it was often not the actual wife who accompanied a king or earl to his next life; often it was a slave. Sacrifices of animals and multiple slaves also occurred. There was also a tradition about what would happen to someone who went into a burial or cremation alive. Those cremated alive, as in suttee, went on to the next world, but those who went into the mound alive became dangerous undead who had to be fought and slain.
The mound and the mound dead were connected to the Vanir and Freyr, and cremation with Odhinn. The mound dead could be fearsome undead or they could be helpful and give gifts such as a gift of poetry. Sacrifices were made to mound dwellers and to the mound itself as a gateway to the land of the dead. The dead were sometimes said to live in mountains or other high places in the earth rather than in man-made mounds. Kings and shepherds sat on mounds and communicated with the dead. Sitting on howes was facilitated by a stone bench seat on top or at its base. The howe dweller could be an inhumation burial or could have been cremated and then placed in the mound. Cremains could be kept separate from any burned offerings made with it, or commingled.
The line between mound-dead and elf was a blurry one, but so was the line between elf and god. The burial mound and the elf hill might be one, but so might the realm of the dead and the bright halls of the gods. Sacrifices of milk poured into naturally occurring "elf cups" could be made to the earth or to the dead.
Cremation is connected with sending the soul to the afterworld in the land of the dead, and the howe burial to remaining in the earth to be reborn in human form, a process that can be assured by naming a child after the dead one. Undead draugr last until the soul is reborn in a new body, which is caused by the naming of a child after the dead person; alternately, the undread draugr lasts until grave robbers slay it, at which point the dead one's soul is released for rebirth in the body of a child named after him or her.
Reading in this book about tales of necromancy that show the dead were believed to have knowledge of the past and future they did not have in life, it occured to me that this showed the dead were not bound to time.
There are many accounts of journeys to the land of the dead that seem to describe a burial mound, full of darkness, bad odors, unmoving corpses, and treasure-- but the corpses come alive and attack when the 'hero' tries to rob the treasure. Also the land of the dead is seen as reached not only through a wall of fire but also a dragon's mouth leading down into darkness, and fire was the sign of a mound inhabited by undead. The land of the dead is reached by a journey down into the earth through darkness across a bridge over a river. There is a high wall, over which the guide throws a slain rooster which crows from the other side. The emphasis is not on where the dead go, but how they get there: the magical horse, the funeral boat. The journey, not the destination.
In those stories that show the mound-dead, when there is a guardian that must be passed to get in, the guardian is a giant, not a god. The realm where the dead live in an afterlife with the gods belongs to the other tradition.
It's tempting to draw a straight line down these traditions and say, rather than believing in a multipartite soul as most heathen scholars say the ancient heathens did, they simply had two competing traditions, Aesiric and Vanic. The Aesiric tradition of pyres and suttee arrived with the Indo-Europeans, and the Vanic tradition began with those most ancient Europeans who buried their dead and sprinkled red powders over them at burial to give them the appearance of life. The Aesiric tradition had an afterlife with the gods reached by cremation, and the Vanic tradition had a belief in a brief afterlife in the mound followed by rebirth in human form. But the author resists this temptation toward oversimplification, showing that the description of Valhalla pulls from both traditions: both the tradition of an afterlife for the soul in another world with a god (Odhinn) and the tradition of the mound-dead who constantly engage in battle in the darkness and keep having their bodies re-animated in undead fashion.
The ancient heathens had a smorgasbord of funerary customs and beliefs which coexisted, among all folks and all times, and the lines between different beliefs and different other-than-human entities were not drawn as strongly and neatly as modern categorizers like. The heathen view of death was not one perspective, but many, side by side.
I highly recommend this book. It's a keeper.
Review by Erin Lale, author of Asatru For Beginners
June 27, 2024
An older book, this book quickly became one of my favorites. An extremely well-researched book; in my opinion, there is no other peer to this one in the topic of Norse afterlife and burial.
This book covers not only how the Old Norse dealt with their dead but also the thought process, myths, and history around their burial rites. From burning the dead to the afterlife and rebirth and even draugr, this book has it all about all things dead and Norse.
If one wants to know about Old Norse burial traditions, this is the book.
This book covers not only how the Old Norse dealt with their dead but also the thought process, myths, and history around their burial rites. From burning the dead to the afterlife and rebirth and even draugr, this book has it all about all things dead and Norse.
If one wants to know about Old Norse burial traditions, this is the book.
February 18, 2019
Love most anything involving this author; she is first and foremost amongst the few I recomend when asked for reading material on Indo-Euro/Norse history and religions. Because of Hilda's curricular background you may come across the occasional snoozefest, however, not all of what she writes will have you snoring, so .. persevere! The wealth of information alone is worth it.
December 29, 2023
This is an incredibly informative novel with a great layout. By the end I feel it got a little repetitive but it was the perfect resource for learning about medieval Scandinavian death practices and afterlife beliefs.
July 6, 2025
Extremely valuable text for any Heathen to reference.
May 3, 2015
For those Norse mythology lovers out there who think they know what happens to warriors when they die, think again! Introductory books on the subject always talk of Valhalla: a hall within the realm of the gods where the dead feast and fight. Then do more fighting and feasting. Turns out, ancient Scandinavian beliefs were far more complicated than that. This is a classic study by Davidson who pretty much wrote the book on northern myths and religion for some time now. By combing through tons of sagas, tales, reports and histories, she tells of a complex picture of the soul and its journey after death. What she found are different strands of beliefs, sometimes depending on whether the body was cremated or buried without cremation. The Norseman had ideas of not only of Valhalla, but competing ones such as rebirth and living inside burial mounds and enjoying the treasures you are buried with! During this analysis she talks of the many interesting characters that people the mythology: dwarves, elves, Valkyries, gods, disir, ghosts (which in Iceland are really animated corpses). This work I believe was part of a Ph.D. thesis, so it is very academic. But it still can be enjoyed by the general reader. She does not however translate into English the names of works she talks about. It is helpful to keep in mind that sogur are sagas and thattir (spelling?), ate tales.
August 19, 2012
Great survey in regard to references in literature, folklore and archaeology to the Norse concept of the dead. Conservative in her conclusions, but also providing inspiration for further study. Highly recommend for a more authentic perspective on Northern thought.
(There is a problem with typographical errors. In the e-version I read, this may be more pronounced because it appears to have gone through a document-scanning process. The problems are not significant enough to alter the value of this work.)
(There is a problem with typographical errors. In the e-version I read, this may be more pronounced because it appears to have gone through a document-scanning process. The problems are not significant enough to alter the value of this work.)
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February 3, 2016Accessible scholarship on a fascinating topic. So much story fodder here... I would like to know if the book she hints at, which mentions a further exploration of this topic by examining Shamanic practice in the north east and among the Lapps, was written?
November 4, 2016
I greatly enjoyed this. I learned a lot about Norse world view and death and it left me wanting to learn even more. There are no definitive conclusions but it opens up pathways of thought and I'd highly recommend this read to anyone interested in death studies, or heathenism.
August 11, 2012
There are a lot of typographical errors.
June 30, 2014
Very cool.
March 8, 2016
Not the cleanest copy, but could usually figure out when the word scanned wrong.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews